In the news

In response to Thursday's (March 27) speech by President Bush, Senator Chuck Hagel had this to say on CNN: "I think this is another episode of Alice in Wonderland. What's up is down, and what's down is up." The whole interview can be viewed here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/03/27/blitzer.hagel.interview.cnn?iref=videosearch

Pittsburgh and Colorado Springs, but not Sunderland

As mentioned in the last issue of the Knight Letter, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre will be performing the ballet of Alice in Wonderland April 17 to 20. Originally created for the English National Ballet, the performance is danced to pieces by Tchaikovsky and includes illusions such as roses that change color and the Duchess's "flying house" (!?). www.pbt.org/performances/alice.php
www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-27-2008/0004781489&EDATE=

Alice in a hookah lounge... with the Caterpillar performed by a male belly dancer... in Colorado Springs? Okay, sure, why not? The Moody Touring Mystery Theatre (http://moodytouringmysteries.com) performs at 40 Thieves Hookah Lounge (http://40thievesonline.com/)on Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29: www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A24182.

The yet-to-be-filmed Mischa Barton movie, Malice in Sunderland, is now Malice in Wonderland, due to lack of funds: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7316174.stm.

Only in SF, and London, and...

Apparently there is an Alice for everyone... Next month, "Cocktailgate," a drag troupe in San Francisco, will present Alison Wonderbra, featuring excerpts of dialog and song from the 1976 Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy: http://music.sfweekly.com/search/events.php?oid=944935

Starting March 28 and continuing for a year, the Alice-inspired "Seasons Through the Looking Glass" installation will decorate the tunnel entrance of the the Victoria and Albert Museum:
www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/looking_glass/index.html.

Subscribers of Nature (or those who wish to pay $32 for the privilege) can read "From Alice to everywhere, with love," a short SF story by Chaz Brenchley: www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7183/full/452126a.html.

Arty Alice

Sue Johnson's "Alice Redux" panorama will be on display at New York City's Schroeder Romero/Winkleman Gallery Project Space through April 26. "The 20-foot-long panorama imagines Alice grown up and finding her way through a dream world cluttered by the flotsam and jetsam of modern consumer culture. Advertising images of everyday products appear alongside allusions to the Lewis Carroll tale, making the work a contemporary fantasia of incongruous imagery." http://somd.com/news/headlines/2008/7363.shtml

A belated congratulations to Bryan Talbot: His Alice in Sunderland was placed on the shortlist for the British Science Fiction Association's Best Novel award back in January. Winners will be announced at Eastercon this coming week: www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa/website/awards.aspx.

Some of you may have read the review in the most recent Knight Letter about the Theatre Gajes (www.gajestheater.nl) "stilted" open air performance in Germany. The group recently toured in Toronto, where LCSNA member Tania Ianovskaia attended and took photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bianovski/AliceNathanPhillipsSquare?authkey=PMdOt4f-P4o.

Last but not least, the one of the winners of the New York Times "Pi Day" (3/14) Poetry Contest (http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/contest-winners/) is Mike Keith's Cadaeic Cadenza, in which each succeeding word of the poem has the same number of letters as the corresponding digit of pi... to the 3,835th digit! Section 3 of the poem is a strange, but clever parody of "Jabberwocky." http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/cadtext.htm

Fun stuff

According to The Muppet Newsflash blog, "The Sesame Street characters are set to appear in a retelling of a classic story in the all-new film "Abby in Wonderland". Giving Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" a Muppety twist, the new DVD will star everyone's favorite Fairy-in-training, Abby Cadabby in her very own film. The musical film is currently in post-production and aimed to reach audiences in just a few months. While Abby takes on the role of Alice, the rest of the Sesame gang joins in (such as Elmo in the role of the Rabbit, Grover as the Mad Hatter, Cookie Monster as the Cheshire Cat, and Bert and Ernie as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum). While the exact release date of this title has not been confirmed yet, I've been told that fans should expect to see Abby's first direct-to-DVD feature hitting stores in September 2008." www.muppetnewsflash.com/2008/03/sesame-street-dvds-coming-your-way.html

Among other new shows, the SciFi Channel announced on Tuesday that it has "commissioned a six-hour miniseries dubbed Alice, a modern day-retelling of Alice In Wonderland..." from the team that created last December's The Wizard of Oz tale Tin Man. www.multichannel.com/article/CA6542335.html

And on the "what were his parents' thinking" front: Lewis Carroll, age 16, made his field hockey debut in Dinnington, U.K., last week: www.dinningtontoday.co.uk/sport/Relegated-side-ready-for-break.3895510.jp

Bits & Bobs

Is it me or is it just sad that the "Jabbawockeez," winners of "America's Best Dance Crew" discuss how much they like Mexican food but fail to acknowledge the source of their name? www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dance_crew/crews.jhtml?crew=jabbawockeez

Xanthic Eye's Wonderlost series of paintings gives the Wonderland characters the look of pale white porcelain dolls, with white clothing and black and blood-red details... some of which are actually blood. These "black, and white, and red all over" pictures can be viewed at http://wonderlost.xanthic.net/.

The U.K. publisher of Frank Beddor's Looking Glass Wars series has announced a mash-up competition to promote the series. "A mash-up is a remix of images, movies clips and sounds created by using simple editing technology... A series of mixable clips based on scenes, characters and events from the books have been created and are available to 'mash' at http://eyespot.com/mixables/TheLookingGlassWars."

Marvel Comics continues its fairy tale/superhero crossovers with Avengers Fairy Tales #1-4. #1 (released March 12) was based on Peter Pan, #2 (April 9) will be based on Pinnochio, and #3 (May 14) will be based on Alice: "No one's telling any "tall" tales this month as Cassie "Stature" Lang's size-shifting abilities accidentally send her spiraling "down the rabbit hole" and into Wonderland! Stature finds herself on an Alice-like adventure through this warped world where nothing is quite what it seems. And when she finally runs into the other Young Avengers, will she be able to bring her twisted teammates to their senses in time, before Queen of Hearts has off with their heads?!" The lovely cover can be seen at www.marvel.com/catalog/?id=8727. (No word yet what #4 will be, but if they are going with the usual classic four, it will be Dorothy/Wizard of Oz.)

Upcoming Events

This weekend, March 8 and 9, the Gwinnett Ballet Theatre of Snellville, Georgia, performs a ballet of Alice with what look like wonderful costumes: www.gwinnettballet.org.


On Saturday, March 15, the Leeds [U.K.] Centre for Victorian Studies, is holding the 19th Northern Victorian Studies Colloquium, on Victorian Ethics. In the section titled: Children and Literature: Zoe Jaques (Anglia Ruskin University) will be giving the following talk at 3:45 pm: “Alice’s Moral Wonderland: Lewis Carroll and Animal Ethics.” Further details from their website: www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/lcvs/Colloquia/Ethics.html.

On Thursday, March 20, PBA Galleries of San Francisco will be holding an auction including illustrated and children's books (www.pbagalleries.com/live/sale_details.php?s=376&). Of particular note are an Appleton Alice (lot 16) of 1865/6, an 1870 Alice (lot 17), and a first edition of Looking Glass (lot 18)

On Friday, March 28, and Saturday, March 29, Arizona's Gravity Jazz Dance Theatre will be performing Alice in Wonderland: www.gravityjazzdance.org. (Are those marathon runners?!)


On Thursday, April 3, PBA Galleries' "fine literature" auction (www.pbagalleries.com/live/sale_details.php?s=377&) will include an 1876 Snark (Lot 18) and a first edition set of S&B/S&BC (Lot 19).


On Saturday, April 26, Storybook Weekend Events of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in conjunction with its performance of Alice In Wonderland, will include a “Mad Hatters Tea Party” in the Great Hall adjacent to the Grand Theater (www.grandoperahouse.org/events/tas/0708/12alice.html), “Queens Croquet” events on the City Square,” and most importantly, a corresponding exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (www.lywam.org) of a small selection of art and items from LCSNA member Joel Birenbaum's collection. The exhibit opens on Friday, April 25.

A (pen)grin, possibly with a cat

Blog stuff and film stuff, today.

It remains to be seen if it is actually Alice-related, but the Penguin books blog (http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2008/02/non-linear.html) hints that that they will "soon be embarking on a experiment in storytelling." The question as yet unanswered is "What has a grin and six tales?" To see a lovely picture of a six-tailed Cheshire Cat and to be notified when more information is released in March (though isn't it March already?), visit http://pengrin.co.uk/.

According to science fiction author Rudy Rucker's blog entry of February 6 (www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2008/02/06/carrollian-syllogisms/) [Yes, I know it's a month old, I'm still catching up], he is contributing an interview for an upcoming volume of articles entitled The Spaces of Wonderland. He also includes some silly syllogisms inspired by Carroll, a nice link to the LCSNA website, photos of Moffett Field (Sunnyvale, CA), and a sketch of a "beanstalk bridge to infinity" featured in his upcoming novel.

Here is a short but pointed animation of a Lewis Carroll's poem "The Owl and the Panther," by animator and video artist Nick Fox-Gieg:
www.videosift.com/video/Peace-Through-Strength-Nick-Fox-Gieg.

From LCS member George Wallace is another short film made with his students: "We read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and then did the filming out in the countryside of Nagano last September. It is hardly Orson Welles but I thought perhaps you might be interested to see some Japanese university students' interpretation of the Carroll story." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfq6Q7LianI

An exhibit for everyman

The Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has an exhibit, "The ABC of Collecting Everyman's Library," which includes an Alice originally owned by Alice (Liddell) Hargreaves. The exhibit is free and runs from January 17 through March 31: www.lib.unc.edu/spotlight/2008/everymans.html.

From our Australian correspondent: "The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Sunday Arts" program of 17 February had in its section "Australian Artists of Tomorrow" an item on Adelaide photographer Harmony Nicholas, "a rising star in photography", "exhibiting at Adelaide's "Citadel Exhibition Space" from 6-11 April 2008". Much of her work plays with images from Alice inWonderland. From what I could make out, it involves a grown adult dressed in the part; her blue frock and blondness seems (ironically or otherwise) derived from Disney rather than Tenniel directly." Images can be viewed at http://dalaiharma.deviantart.com/gallery/.

The Design Toscano website has a resin Humpty Dumpty statue for your garden or a very strong bookshelf (it weighs 11 pounds). It's not quite Tenniel, but...

www.designtoscano.com/product/code/NG32097.do.